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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Let's for a moment imagine that you're a propagandist... I mean editor at the AP News Desk. You're supposed to find the right photo to illustrate a story with the headline, "Israel: Militants plotted to kill Olmert".

The right photo to illustrate such a story would be

A. A photo of Olmert

B. A photo of the "militants"

C. A photo of a Palestinian Arab boy next to an Israeli soldier

Guess which one the Associated Press picked?

If you guessed A. or B. you have some concept of credible reporting and there's no place for you at the AP. If you picked C. the completely irrelevant to the story propagandistic photo of a Palestinian Arab boy next to an Israeli soldier, congratulations you're in. Welcome to journalism.

Random photos of Arab children next to Israeli soldiers are approved for use next to any possible story involving Arab terrorism. This is meant to suggest that the terrorists in question are little Arab boys. The fundamental dishonesty of the media renders it unable to report honestly without suppressing the truth in a haze of propaganda. Reporters come to Israel's struggle to survive with a preconceived conception that is unalterable and reality is filtered through that conception to arrive at the same conclusions. In the end it's why the the media produces the same conclusions regardless of what happens. I have seen Arabs more willing to question the official narrative on Arab terrorism than the mainstream media which insists on repeating the same fallacies about occupation, concessions and the cycle of violence over and over again.

The lie perpetuates itself because the cultural consensus of the left is backed by a hammer lock on the academic and media institutions that is so profound that the idea of those same people criticizing the "Israel Lobby" for suppressing the debate and controlling foreign policy is laughable. It's Oceania hunting Goldstein's dissent all over again in 1984. Talking about the power of the "Israel Lobby" is laughable in the face of the manifest and totalitarian power of American Liberalism. Go to the campus speech by any conservative speaker and you can see true "suppression of debate". Open the pages of the New York Times and you can see true "manufacturing consent."

As can be seen above, the media doesn't have to print phony photos as they did during the second Lebanon War. They can just keep printing photos out of context as they were doing long before Photoshop. They can furiously work to shove their propaganda down the throats of the American public every opportunity they get. The media cannot be made honest. On occasion it can only be made slightly less dishonest.

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comments:

A lot of people don't look at any further than the headline and photo caption; they're more powerful than most people realize.

Depending on the length of the article I probably would have inserted two photos. Olmert at the top of the article, since the plot centered around him and he is a high-profile person and PM of a nation.

The second photo would be perhaps a group shot of protesting Palestinians or shots in which "militants" have their faces covered while holding a weapon.

On the other hand, if an arrest was made and a mug shot available--a split screen image of Olmert and the suspect.

But an innocent Palestine boy out on a stroll with his father/brother/uncle while licking an ice cream cone, and an Israeli soldier walking close enough to protect but not so close as to be intrusive??

The propgandists at the AP they probably saw it as an Israel with the gun to the back of a little Palestinian child.

The AP editorial department probably searched their archives for a stock photo Israelis menacing Palestinians--any Palestinian. Which of course is still terribly out of context with the story.

Photos out of context? Slanting stories, manipulating and playing down articles which don't follow the desired line? Surely not ? Every one knows the Agencies (and their employees) would consider the 12 million Jewish audience just as important as the 1.6 billion Islamic audience..It's mere coincidence time and time and time again.